Sky Lights
by Tyrael
Summary: A teenager is walking home through a field one night after school, when the Skrit Na decide to have some fun. Sold off as a slave on an alien world, Scott must fend for himself and deal with a startling revelation.
1. Sky Lights

Chapter 1:

Sky Lights

My name is Scott. Just Scott, no last name. Common enough, I guess. Wish I could write down my full name. I was always taught that introducing yourself to someone was common courtesy.

But giving my full name would mean I had nothing to hide. That I was a nice, normal guy. But that's wrong. I'm still a nice guy, but I'm no longer normal, and I sure as hell have something to hide. I can't tell you my last name. Or the city where I used to live.

But you'd think that telling you my name is Scott would lead you to assume that I'm a human, right? You'd assume I have arms and legs and a face and a mouth. But names tell you nothing of that.

I am not human.

I WAS a human, once. I was born a human, at least. I have human emotions. But I'm not human.

I'm a normal kid, I guess. Or used to be. Did okay in school. Good in English, bad in science and math. A bit of a nerd. Sci-fi, terraforming, aliens, the whole nine yards. I had dark brown hair, long bangs that kept dipping into my face and eyes. My eyes were…..what color were my eyes? It's been months, and I've already forgotten a lot about what it was like to be human.

Doesn't matter anyway, I guess. Now my eyes, all four of them, are the slit pupils of a reptiles, irises and sclera that literally shine with a soft green glow. My eyes and lack of mouth make me appear expressionless, even when I'm furious or ecstatic. My social mask of carefully-neutral expression that I had developed for survival in high school, was now a reality far more bizarre than the bullies it had been crafted to escape from.

Now you're really lost, right? Yeah, thought so. Look, maybe I should just start from the beginning…

It all started late one night, walking home from school. Stars twinkled overhead, mostly blotted out by the occasional streetlights as I walked along, re-shifting the weight of my backpack with its 20-odd pounds of school books. I chose not to walk the sidewalks of suburbia, but instead cut through some meadows and stuff to get home faster. Mom was serving garlic pasta tonight, one of my favorites.

I breathed in the brisk air. Felt it chill my lungs and reinvigorate me, bringing to mind hot cups of cappuccino at some outdoor coffee house.

I opened my eyes from it and just stared upwards at the stars for a little bit. Nothing interesting to see down here, anyway. My mind sort of wandered. Space, in my imagination, is just far cooler than anything down here. I mean, it's such a big-ass universe that there's got to be SOMEBODY else out there. Otherwise what's even really the point of doing anything at all?

It was just on this train of thought that I saw a new light appear in the sky. Just looked like another star, until it was moving and blinking. I sighed in disappointment. Probably a low-flying plane. Damn.

I kept watching it anyway, as a change from watching the slowly-panning open fields around me. It was weird. I could swear it was getting brighter. A brilliant, blue-white light that I suddenly noticed was moving too fast to be an airplane—then slower and slower as it brightened.

Then, the thing itself came into view and I just about died of shock.

It was a real, honest-to-freaking-god flying saucer. With the whole circular-thing and the round-portholes and the twinkly-lights and the whole nine yards.

I froze, but was inwardly disappointed and outraged. _No way_, I thought furiously. _This is NOT happening. I can't believe that real aliens would be so lame as to conform to popular stereotype like this_. I totally felt gypped.

But gyp or not, it was sure as hell real. So that was a small comfort, of some sort. The saucer hovered right above me. It was about as big as three nose-to-nose school buses, for its circumference. Big, but for a spaceship I thought it was pretty small. But then again all I ever knew about spaceships before was books I'd read. Talk about your armchair quarterback.

A beam of light appeared. I only had time to think, _come on, how much more cliché can this get? before getting overwhelmed and blacking out._

Consciousness returned abruptly, and my eyes opened quietly. I've always been a fast waker anyway, comes from putting my alarm across the room so I would have to get out of bed to get at it. It actually works pretty well.

I couldn't really make sense of what I was seeing, yet. A few moments passed and I tried to orient myself. Okay, I was horizontal. The room, if you could call it that, was a big round white blur. Weird.

I sat up smoothly and blinked a bit, simply letting my eyes adjust and looking around. My impression seemed to be on the dot. I've always joked that humans are overly fond of rectangles, and this totally exemplified that, since NOTHING in here was anything approaching rectangular. It was all ovals and circles and gentle flowing lines. Like those iPods. It was like Apple got to design a starship or something.

An oval-topped door lay on one wall. The other walls were weird. Blankly featureless underneath, they were covered with things that looked a lot like cocoons. They sort of pulsed and writhed like larva, or frozen maggots. Nasty.

I lay upon a sort of bench in one wall. I did a little inventory check. My backpack was gone, which ridiculously was my greatest cause for alarm at the moment. If my backpack was gone, then I was kind of screwed. All my books and homework and stuff were in there. If those were gone for good, then I was SO getting F's this semester. F's like you wouldn't believe. Dammit.

Besides that, I was untouched, it seemed. Clothes were still fine. Pockets were empty. It was pretty much me vs. the world.

The door opened. They must have seen me wake up or something, despite the lack of noticeable cameras or whatever. I sort of did a double-take and was outraged.

It was a little different, but the alien guy was pretty much the same little grey men we had all seen on bumper stickers or whatever. Big heads, big black eyes, small bodies, long arms, etc. Damn. There went my theory of CREATIVITY in natural evolution.

The guy wore a blue sort of uniform. Looked like a ranked guy. The small mouth opened, and he began to talk. It was weird, because halfway through his sentence some sort of translator seemed to kick in. "Hogren kalach, gah fillat the inconvenience. Your hands are of interest of us, so we have decided to sell you to a clumsy race a couple light-years from here. Your dexterity will be valued."

I blinked, still not quite mentally awake. "Woah, waitasec, you shot who in the what-now? I mean, like, wait, you're selling me into some weird sorta alien slavery?"

Alien-Guy nodded. "We apologize for any inconvenience."

I'm normally pretty polite, but this sort of set me off. "INCONVENIENCE?" I retorted sarcastically. "Oh, SURE, no PROBLEM, it's all FINE, I'll just be carted to some entire other PLANET and working as a…….um, coal miner or something! It's WONDERFUL! JUST the career I was LOOKING FOR!"

The alien nodded again. "We are pleased you approve. You will be fed until the journey ends." Evidently he didn't have the first clue about teenage sarcasm.

He turned around and began to leave. "Woah-woah-whoa-woah, waitasecond here dude," I jabbered, the little nonsense's sort of flowing out as place-holders while I got my thoughts in line. "So that's, like, just IT? Not even a goddamn anal probe?"

"No. We have finished our anal experiments and obtained all the data our scientists need."

"Oh. Umm…..Oh."

Faced with this witty comeback, the alien guy left the room, the door closing behind him.

Damn it. Sold into slavery. This was TOTALLY not happening to me. Slavery was like AIDs, it always happened to "somebody else", not you. In the history textbooks people got enslaved every 5 seconds or something, but this is the 21st century, man! Slavery, like…doesn't work anymore. Or something.

With this brilliant train of thought, I sat back down on my little cot, feeling miserable. The hours blended into one another seamlessly, and I fell asleep after a while from sheer boredom.


	2. Arrival

Weeks passed. Thank god I still had my watch, though the time-zones were probably shot to hell now that I wasn't on Earth anymore. Ah, well, it's not like the universe runs on Greenwich Mean Time anyway.

Not like there were any other time zones to set it to. Besides, I heard once that length of days varies on rotation speed and distance from the local sun. Fat lot of good my sci-fi books do me now.

Anyway, the rest of the voyage passed with little other event. The door would open, I would be handed a plate of food, and left alone again. The food was some sort of nutrient substance thing. Whatever. I was hungry, so I ate it. Didn't have my backpack, so I simply daydreamed or fell asleep. Tried investigating the larva things, but they didn't really respond to anything I did.

Finally, after about 6 days as counted by my watch's little one-to-thirty-one counter, the grey dude came in again and announced that we had arrived.

"Oh yeah?" I asked, gazing into his eyes for lack of anywhere else to settle. "Where're we at?"

"The home world of a race known as the Kelfiirians," he replied. "You will be sold there. Come."

"Terse guy…" I muttered to myself, stretching slightly and ambling after him.

This was the first time I had seen the rest of the ship. My impression was right, the rest of it was curvy and iPod-esque, too. Almost like that white ship in the original Star Wars movie, but more rounded and plushier-looking. Lots more of the cocoon things were around, but some of them were open. Crawling around were, I kid you not, gigantic freaking beetles or something. They looked like huge insects, with fourteen sets of legs and six sets of antennae. Again, I was disappointed in the lack of alien creativity.

A hatch lay at one side of what was presumably the bridge, through which I was roughly thrust. For being so short, their guards sure had a lot of muscle. It's not like I was terribly keen to stay in the ship anyway.

A blast of sunlight hit me! I squinted and shaded my eyes, waiting for them to adjust And when they did…

_No…freakin…way…_ My jaw dropped.

Stretching before my dumbfounded eyes was a vast, sprawling, bustling hive of movement. Dark cloud cover obscured most of the sky overhead, and dusky-red dirt crunched under my tennis shoes. I stood at the edge of a large dirt clearing into which the alien ship had landed. Seething throngs of aliens scurried to and fro, some bent under huge weights, others apparently conversing.

Hundreds…thousands…too many to count. This place was seriously huge. You think Time's Square on New Year's 2000 was a lot of people? That was nothing. This place could have Times Square for breakfast. It could fit 9 Times Squares inside it and have room for more. Ships of every shape, size, design and configuration zoomed overhead and bustled here and there. It was just an overwhelming sight.

One of the aliens trotted out to greet us, and I got my first good clear look at these guys. Wow. This guy was massive. Huge. Stood at something like seven feet tall. Powerful reverse-jointed legs that looked capable of gigantic bounds and lethal kicks in combat. Dusky-red scales. An almost-human torso, except for a weird sort of bony plate on the upper portion. Thick arms, ending in long three-fingered hands that were toughened like a carpenter's. A head that was unmistakably not-human, between the glowing green eyes to the almost elfin ears to the mouthless face to the four nostrils. Two more eyes floated on tentacles above its head, which twisted and writhed idly in a constant environment-check. There was a big sort of cranial skull cap, extending from where a human nose would be, along the back of the head and neck, where it merged with the collarbone. His slit-pupiled eyes literally glowed, a creepy sort of luminescent green. And last, but definitely not least, was the tail. A positively massive tail, thick and sinewy, probably as long as he was tall, writhed behind him with a triangular blade capping it like a one-sided mushroom. One look at that tail and you know that these guys aren't all cuddly. That thing could do some serious damage.

I drank in every detail of its appearance, mentally in awe. _Now THIS_, I thought to myself, _is something that evolved on an alien world_. One look and you just knew he wasn't from around anywhere we knew.

The alien jabbed a bulbous finger at my and looked at my grey-skinned captors. They spoke to it in a weird sort of fluting language that I couldn't even begin to comprehend, and negotiations seemed to be one-sided. The new red alien guy wasn't saying anything, and I wondered how it even talked at all, if it had no mouth.

They appeared to reach a conclusion of some sort, and the red guy handed what was obviously some kind of money over to my captors. They took it and just trooped back into their ship.

I looked at my captor with trepidation as the saucer sailed off into the sky. The enormity of my situation hit me all at once. I was stranded on an alien planet. This was for real, and it wasn't going to be over any time soon. I probably wouldn't see Earth, or anything on Earth ever again. No more Mom or Dad. No more school. No more garlic pasta. No more Nintendo games.

That last thought distressed me greatly. But I didn't have time to dwell on my situation any further, as my new master beckoned me to follow him. I sighed to myself and followed, having little alternative. My bridges were well and truly burnt.

As I spent time with my captors, it became clear to me that they spoke in a weird sort of telepathy, their words sort of appearing in your mind's native language without actually translating into sound waves. Weird, and it was a little hard to get used to at first, since, to my ears, a bustling marketplace was completely and totally silent, but to my mind it was chaos.

I was given little, menial chores that all required dexterity of one sort or another, like tying knots or repairing minute doodads. It didn't matter. As the days turned into weeks, then months, by my watch's count, I lost any hope of going back to Earth. It looked fully as though I was to spend my life on this desert planet, and I might as well get used to it.

I got to know my captor well, at least. His name was Sekpidar Xiloscient, and seemed a little nonplussed by the small pink creature in his home. He worked to produce tiny machines that liked a bit like gyroscopes, but seemed to have some other function entirely. It was to this task that my human hands were put to work.

Yet, there were already hundreds of the devices that had already been made, and Sek appeared to live alone. So if he had made them, then I must not be that important. Why, then, was I wanted? It was a mystery, but as long as I had shelter and essentially free room and board, I didn't complain.

Food came in the form of weird nutrient-tablet things. The Kelfiirians seemed to absorb these through their fingers, while I munched mine like a candy bar. No idea what was in them, but they worked just fine as food, so there were no problems.

For some reason, Sek seemed to disappear every couple of hours. I assumed he was hitting the can, but I actually hadn't seen any restrooms anywhere, though. Once I had communicated my own need to Sek, he allowed me to construct a makeshift outhouse thing. It did the job, so whatever. Yet his disappearances were another big question mark that I didn't find out about for a long time.


	3. Revelations

Gradually, Sek began taking me with him on his supply runs to the local market place. Whenever we were in the market, I would catch sight of this gigantic steel-grey compound on the outskirts of the city. Sek didn't know much about it.

(The city council resides there,) he explained to me in his customary mind-talk. (Every cycle they take some of our products and export them. We do not find out to where they are sent, nor do we care.)

I sort of shrugged and left it at that. We finished our purchases and went for home, whereupon I was set upon tinkering again and assembling more gizmos. Sek disappeared into another room and shut the door. It was the only room that even had a door in the first place, I realized.

What could be in there that he wanted to hide, I wondered? He went there every couple hours, every day without fail, and presumably slept there. I didn't want to really pry into his business, but the Kelfiirian culture didn't seem to be one overly concerned about privacy, dealing with everything openly. The marked contrast piqued my curiosity greatly.

So, this time, instead of continuing with my chores, I decided to check it out. Removing my ratty tennis shoes, I crept over to the door silently on the adobe-type floor to the closed doorway. No doorknob, I noticed. I poked at it a bit, and it swung inward. Like those doors they have for waiters in restaurant kitchens or something, I realized. I pushed it open the rest of the way—and yelped.

Inside the room was this…creature. A horrifying, melting shifting mass of red and blue and tan, extra legs, random appendages poking out at odd places, and a syrupy mass of scales and fur. It was this crazy mutant, a sickening meld of Kelfiirian and who-the-hell-knows-what. As I watched, two horse like legs shot out of his lower back as his butt—yes, sorry, his butt—just began to grow, extending straight backwards like a crazy shelf. It took a little bit for my perspective to shift, but I realized that it was forming the back half of some kind of weird animal thing. His torso remained mostly the same, but was shifting subtly. The bonelike upper plate slowly shifted inwards with a shlooping sound to form an almost-humanoid chest. His fingers split and fragmented, again and again and again, multiplying the digits from 3 to about 6 or 7. His head remained physically mostly the same, although like the chest, the bony plate-thing retracted inwards, looking vaguely more humanlike. But the mouthless face and the eyestalks stayed on, so any human resemblance was fleeting at best. His legs ground and cracked, reversing direction. I could hear the boned scraping together into their new position, and I'm afraid that at this point I kind of lost my lunch.

When I wiped my mouth and looked up, whatever transformation thing had nearly completed. The reddish scales dissolved completely, replaced by motley blue-and-tan fur. The final creature was almost like a centaur, actually. Deer-like lower body, humanoid upper body. The crazy head was still unmistakably alien, as was the gigantic muscled tail sprouting from the lower body's rump.

The weird centaur-thing that Sek had become, noticed me as I tossed my cookies, so to speak. With a whiplike FWAPP, that evil-looking blade was just a couple millimeters away from my throat. I didn't dare to swallow, and just sort of gave him this bug-eyed stare of absolute terror. His eyestalks stared at me almost accusingly.

(I told you to remain out there with your duties,) he said in a low voice.

I licked my lips. "Woah, woah, Sek, um, jus'-just holdonasec here," I gibbered. My mind didn't even totally comprehend what was really going on, so I sort of dumbly blurted the first things that were coming to mind. "Uh, y'see, I, uh, I'd been noticing that you kinda like vanished and went in here every day and well I got curious and I poked my head in here and Jesus H Christ on a pogo stick what the hell was that about?" I said all in a rush.

He ignored my babbling. (Why are you here?)

I swallowed again, and began to actually recollect myself. "Well, I'd noticed that you were going away for a little while every day, so I wondered what you were up to, so I came in here and…" I trailed off nervously, eyeing the razor tail blade hovering near my jugular. He turned around and faced me fully, waiting for me to continue.

Aw, screw it, I thought to myself, might as well jump in with both feet. "Look," I began, trying to power my way past the worst of it, "just what the hell was that about? That…weird…shifty…changey…thing…?" I made little morphy gestures in the air with my hands, trying to articulate. In truth, although it creeped me out at first, now that my brain was actually working, it actually was pretty cool. Shape-shifting was another thing that came up often in the books I used to read. "Can I learn it?"

Sek The Amazing Blue Centaur sort of gave me a fish-eyed look, and then removed his tail from my throat. I breathed easier. Sort of.

(To answer that question,) he began slowly, (you need to know a bit more about what is happening on this world.)

"Huh?" Not my most intelligent response ever.

(There is a race,) he explained, (who views the galaxy as their battleground. Insatiable, they conquer their way across the stars…)

"That song sucked," I muttered to myself, remembering the second Star Wars prequel.

(…ruthlessly enslaving all they come across,) Sek finished, ignoring my little geeky interruption. (They are a race of parasites. Small grey creatures, resembling protoplasms, they are able to enter a host body through its ear canal and synchronize their neurons with the synapses of the host brain, effectively controlling all physical functions.)

I nodded, and was VERY glad I had stayed awake in biology class. "They take over your body?"

(Precisely,) he answered. (They are called the Yeerks.) When he said the name, there was a palpable surge of hatred and slow-burning anger in his telepathic voice. I blinked at the sudden rise in intensity. (To rob a creature of its very body is one of the greatest crimes in the galaxy,) he glowered. (They have used this ability to infiltrate and conquer countless species in this arm of the galaxy alone. They have infested the local leaders of this species, and have installed a puppet government. It is this government that I am observing.)

I raised my hand like I was asking a question in class. "Can I go a little off-topic? What the hell are you?"

(I am of a race called the Andalites,) Sek responded. (We are the only technologically advanced race that knows of the Yeerks and are able to combat them effectively.)

"How? Guns and stuff?"

(Guns, yes. But our greatest weapon, you have jus witnessed. We have a technology that allows us to absorb the DNA of a creature and absorb it into our bloodstream. We then use that to reconstruct the original creature, and essentially become a perfect genetic clone of the original.)

"Cool."

He looked nonplussed. I pressed on. "Can I learn it?" I repeated.

Sek's main eyes widened in surprise. (You would fight them as well?)

"Hells yeah. Better than making your damn gyroscopes."

He beckoned me closer, and I obliged. Turning to one side, he picked up a small blue cube form a nearby table. No more than a couple inches in diameter on each side, it seemed to glow faintly with its own inner light.

(Press your hand to one side and concentrate,) he instructed. I did so, and was surprised when a sort of electric tingle passed from the cube into my hand, and spread throughout my body. It only lasted for an instant, and when I blinked it was over and I felt no different.

"Is that it?" I complained, half-disappointed. No light show or anything. Kind of anticlimactic.

Sek made a gesture with his eyestalks that I had come to interpret as the equivalent of a nod. (Yes. However, be warned: This technology is not flawless. It--)

Suddenly, there was a pounding at the door outside. Sek spat out a curse that my mind translated as something I really shouldn't write down here. (The Yeerks!) he exclaimed. (I had suspected they had monitoring systems in place, but…)

I looked around, feeling kind of helpless. (Listen,) Sek commanded urgently. (There is not much time. I arrived on this world through a crash landing, so I cannot give you my own ship to use.)

"Wait, give me your ship? What the—what are you talking about?" I stammered, confused and a little overloaded.

Sekpidar Xiloscient looked at me gravely. (It seems the Yeerks have been watching us,) he said tersely. (They have seen me, and have seen me reveal myself to you. You will be killed or infested as an accomplice. Therefore you must flee the planet.)

My heart soared at the prospect of finally getting off this slime ball, but my joy was tempered by run-for-your-life terror. "What about you?"

(I shall destroy my possessions here,) Sek responded seriously. One look into his eyes, and I could tell he meant Business. (This technology can never fall into their hands. I will destroy this room, and myself, before falling into their grasp.)

I stood, dumbfounded. "But then—what about—"

Sek places his strange, thin alien hands on my shoulders. (I cannot be taken alive,) he told me gently. (You will be on your own from now on.)

My stomach squirmed. I'd usually been happy to get out from any parent's thumb, but this guy was the only relation or acquaintance I had on this strange world. If Sek got torched I would be a hobo, a homeless street dude. Or something.

The front door finally crashed in, and heavy feet began to clomp in the halls, storming towards the room. Sek snapped alert. (There is no more time,) he declared, and handed me a small object. (This has access codes to a small shuttle that I owned under my local persona. Now, flee!)

"Uhm…" I looked around. If the bad guys were coming through the door, how would I get out? The answer came in the form of a small window on one wall. It looked a little small, but with Evil Dudes of Doom at my heels, you'd be surprised how effective adrenaline can be. A quick running start and I vaulted through, landing and tumbling on the ground outside.

I picked myself up from the dry, dull red earth as I heard the door burst on. The whiplike FWAPP of Sek's tail sounded again, and alien screams of agony filled the air as he fought whatever goons the Yeerks had sent.

I winced and bolted. _Okay, Scott, think man, think, I ordered myself. You've got bad guys on your ass, first things first you gotta lose 'em. Best way to lose pursuers…? _I thought back to the billions of movies I had seen. Cheesy, yeah, but I couldn't think of anything else to call on at the moment. _What was it the main character always does…? Oh. Duh. He hides in a crowd._

I swerved, and began to sprint down the rows of dwellings. Everything was within walking distance, since their society or whatever hadn't exactly invented Toyota.

In under a minute I reached the marketplace, and dove into the crowd of aliens, no questions asked. Sliding in between the creatures, I was so concentrated on taking cover and getting away that I didn't notice the first guy I shoved past jerk slightly and slump where he stood.

I crouched down in the tangle of reverse-jointed legs, and hoped I wouldn't be noticed by whatever Yeerk goons came after me. I realized that I hadn't actually seen the guys who burst in the door, so I didn't know who to look out for.

I hunkered down into a ball on the ground and squeezed my eyes shut and did something I hadn't done since I was a little kid: I concentrated on being invisible, with the if-I-can't-see-you-you-can't-see-me philosophy.

It was then that I noticed a weird gummy sensation in my hands. I looked down—and nearly shrieked. My hands! The fingers had begun to fuse together in the weirdest way, flesh sort of hanging like stringy cheese between them. It was the creepiest and most disturbing sight I had seen in almost my entire life. There is nothing to describe the horror of seeing your own hands melting and shifting and freaking out, the same body that you had lived with and known for more than 18 years, changing so drastically.

The moment I noticed it however, the fusion stopped. I flexed my fingers slightly, it was a bit like a permanent Live Long And Prosper salute. Very weird. Suddenly, it clicked. What was it Sek had said? "a technology that allows us to absorb the DNA of a creature…and become a perfect genetic clone of the original"? That guy I had brushed back there…I must have "absorbed" his DNA, however the hell I did that, and started the process thingy.

Sweet. I shrugged to myself. If you're trying to be inconspicuous, what better to do than blend in? I closed my eyes and began concentrating like I did before. And then, I felt the changed begin. I convinced myself it was all some freaky special effect or something. That helped. Only a little.

The first thing to change were my hands, as the fingers finished fusing together, then bulged out slightly at the tips to form the nutrient-absorbing things. From the tips, a coat of reddish scales began to wash up my arms like water, or like a pitcher being filled up with Kool-Aid that's got glitter in it. The scales spread up my arm, then flooded out across my entire body. I felt as dry as a bone, and all the moisture in my mouth vanished. My mouth actually vanished at that point too. Like the fingers, little strings of flesh sort of filled in the opening until I couldn't feel my jaw move anymore. I tried to move it, but it took me a second to realize that I just couldn't do it, those muscles just weren't there. Literally gone. A sudden panic overtook me. It was like the worst gag in the world, as I couldn't even make sounds in my throat.

Not that I had a throat anymore, either. That had sort of filled in without me noticing, and another wave of fear washed over me. I couldn't breathe! Couldn't swallow, talk, scream, nothing? I was totally and completely mute.

So it was with total silence that I felt my legs crunch together and lock rigid. Not a sound escaped me as I could FEEL my bones grinding together to create the reverse-jointed predatory legs. It was really weird. You could totally feel them shifting, your very internal organs themselves moving around, but none of it actually HURT. Like getting a cavity with heavy Novocain, you could feel the vibrations, but the actual pain wasn't there. MY feet changed as well. My toes sort of diverted to each side like parting hair, and then stretched out and hardened. My heel also lengthened and solidified, all forming three sharp talons that kind of shredded my tennis shoes. Dammit, those were some of my favorite shoes. I had really liked them.

My pelvis changed in some pretty shocking ways, too. No details here, folks. This isn't that kind of book.

Then, from the bottom of my lower back, I felt this massive sort of lump. It exploded out of the base of my spine like some kind of monstrous snake, shredding my jeans without a thought, this massive, coiled, thickly sinuous tail. I swear it was like 7 feet long, but it felt about a bazillion feet longer than that.

The ground seemed to drop away, and it took me a second to realize that I was growing a full foot taller, or more. Cool, I thought to myself. I could feel the rest of my limbs fill out accordingly in proportion.

My upper chest sort of hardened and bulged outwards, into the breastplate bony thing that I had noticed on the other Kelfiirians.

Finally, the top of my head prickled, then, sproot! Sproot! Two long tentacle-things shot up from my skull, as my hair sort of got sucked into my scalp like spaghetti. The ends of the tentacles split and opened slightly, and for a long, frozen moment I didn't even know what I was processing.

Eyes! Two new eyes! I could see from two different viewpoints at the same time! And they moved, too! Up, down, left right, backwards, diagonal, anywhere I pointed them, I could suddenly see. I could see in three directions at once. I could curl them over and stare myself in the face like a mirror. I could look at people behind me. I could look into the sky without moving my head an inch. It was insane. Insane!

My eyes sort of widened, then kept growing, roughly doubling in diameter as my vision sort of changed. Colors suddenly faded into the background, as other ones leapt forward. In a flash of insight, I understood. My eyes were partially seeing in the infrared spectrum. Kick-ass.

Finally, the changed were complete. With my eyestalks, I looked over my new body. My t-shirt, jeans and sneakers were not totally shredded and ruined, of course. I wrestled the scraps off, but it didn't feel all that weird without them. Suddenly tall, hulking, powerful, and so totally not anything from around Earth it wasn't funny, I was a far cry from the human I had been before.

And the crazy thing is, I wasn't the slightest bit concerned. I was overjoyed. Ecstatic! I had always dreamed of going beyond my boring human boundaries as a kid, and reading all my science fiction had only re-doubled my dreams of becoming something more than I was. Yet these were all just fantasies…daydreams that were now being realized.

Bumping against some of the other aliens around me, I was suddenly and forcibly reminded of my predicament. The Yeerks were still out there, and still looking around for the human Scott. Thankfully, they weren't looking for the creature I had become.

Nevertheless, I stayed low for a few hours. My watch band hadn't snapped, so I kept it on. Search parties of aliens came and went, searching the crowd. When they found my clothes, there was a great hubbub, and the search only doubled in intensity. Night began to fall, and they were still at it. Given the fact that they had the time to concentrate on me, I had to assume that they had already dealt with Sekpidar. And since he had vowed not to be taken alive, I had to assume that my guardian was dead. I didn't really grieve, though. Everything was still too unreal, like I was watching a movie or something.

Remembering the object he had given me, I had fished it out from my jeans pocket before the Yeerks found my clothes. I now took a look at it. It had a tiny screen, like those Game Boy Micros, but I could make out a string of weirdly alien characters. Trippy. No reason to assume these guys had developed the Greek alphabet, anyway.

Over the next hour or so I felt my way around to that big metal compound Sek had showed me earlier. In my new body, I felt like I was wearing a disguise. None of the guards gave me a second look as I walked through the gates. I don't know if "walked" is the right word to describe a gait that's sort of half-stalk, half-chicken-strut. These reverse-jointed legs looked funny to move around with, but really moved me quite fast over distances. Not bad.

In the compound, I found my way to a spaceport, obviously characterized by the ships lifting and landing everywhere. It was the same spaceport, actually, where the grey alien dudes had initially landed with me. I poked my way around, and eventually found the right ship through trial and error. Thankfully the stuff on the card corresponded to a little keypad on the outside. I punched in the access code, then poked random buttons inside until I found the "close the door" button.

I've always been a fiddler type of person, meddling with this and that. When fixing things, I tend to just press buttons until the thing does what I want it to do. And in the cockpit of a spaceship, there were so many buttons I didn't know where to start. Most button system s are designed with some sort of logic to them, like if you want to get to a DVD function you hit Menu)DVD. But here, with everything in literally alien letters, I had no clue where to start.

Eventually I found the "on" button. After a good while of fiddling more, I discovered that there was a sort of logbook type of thing, with coordinates of different planets set in.

This was totally right out of a sci-fi book, and I was acutely conscious of how cliché this all was. But hey, I'm a human-turned-alien on a planet in the middle of nowhere, how much more storybook can you get?

To cut a long story short, I searched around until I found a star system with 9 planets and a single yellow star for a sun, in the galaxy that I recognized as the Milky Way. If that wasn't our solar system then I was screwed. But I had burnt my bridges a looooong time ago, so there was no real reason not to go forward with the plan.

The flight itself was long and boring. No in-flight movie, no peanuts, no little pretzels. But on the plus side, no crying babies or cramped Coach-class seats. Hey, you win some, you lose some. The ship itself was almost organic in feel, all rounded and softly pinkish, with quiet sort of lighting and gizmos and doodads of unidentifiable purpose scattered in little rooms here and there.

As navigated by the ship and counted by my watch, the journey took about 5 days, 3 of which were spent in a weird whitely-shifting mass of who-the-hell-knows-what. Maybe it was like that light speed stuff in Star Trek, maybe I was just hallucinating, who knows. All I know is that it made the ship go a LOT faster.

Anyway, I got to Earth, living off of the nutrient bar things. Once in orbit, I realized I didn't have the first clue how to land one of these things. I mean, I had seen Apollo 13 about the re-entry burn, so I knew that you had to go in at a certain angle. But I was stuck in an alien body in some spaceship from the planet Whatever. I couldn't exactly call up Houston and ask them to walk be through it.

So, I just blindly aimed it at an angle that looked good, hit the engines, and hoped for the best. Soon, fire began to rage and burn around the outside of the ship. But this ship was made for entering and exiting atmospheres, so it handled the atmospheric burn nicely, even though I'm pretty sure Apollo would have gotten kinda toasted.

Then there I was, flying over North America in an alien spaceship. My four eyes stung with unshed tears. I was home! Sort of. Had to actually find where I lived, first.

Thinking back to Geography, it wasn't too hard. I found the right state, and took a stab in the dark as to what part of it held the city I was in. It was night-time, 3 AM according to my watch that I had kept through all of this. So there wasn't much chance of anyone seeing me. That's good. Didn't want to pop up on X-Files or whatever as the newest candid celebrity.

The actual landing itself, wasn't as much of a landing as it was a controlled crash. I knew absolutely zero about flying a ship or a plane or anything before. I looked for a runway or something, but the only long stretches of land were highways or the meadows close by them. So, I just trusted that the alien designers knew what they were doing, and just arced in to a meadow by a nearby forest.

Then, finally, with a crumple of branches and a final WHAMMMM, I smashed into the ground, creating a long furrow in the earth as the ship slid to a stop. I popped the hatch and stepped out. The cool night air revitalized me and brought a fresh wave of nostalgic emotion with it. I was finally home again, after all those long weeks and months on planet Whatever.

But…now that I was home, what could I do? I couldn't go back home, since the appearance of an alien would kind of cause a stir. I had an advantage in that I could absorb the nutrients out of things, so I didn't need to hit Safeway or whatever to get a decent meal.

But in the meantime, I had to assume that somebody would find the crash site, which meant I had to abandon it and make myself scarce. So, with only a tattered wristwatch to my name, I set out into the woods, and did not look back.


	4. Discovery

Tobias

Another cold, lonely night in the woods. I fluffed my feathers, huddled against the tree trunk, and shivered. Damn.

This is my life. I had morphed a hawk. I overshot the two-hour morphing limit. I was trapped. Trapped in the body of a red-tailed hawk, trapped in a world where birds are dangerous enemies, trapped in a world where I kill to eat, trapped in a world where I sleep on cold branches instead of between warm sheets.

I had once heard a saying, "Life's a bitch, and then you die". I laughed ruefully to myself. That pretty much summed up our situation. Six kids and an alien cadet who can turn into animals like bad CG and fight against one of the biggest and baddest military conquerors the galaxy's seen.

See, there are these dudes called the Yeerks. A race of slugs, really. But diabolical slugs, slugs that are cold and calculating. But most importantly, parasitic slugs. They enter in your ear. Creepy, huh? But that's not it. They enter through your ear, and then they squeeze themselves out like a rag and wrap themselves around your brain.

They take control of your body. Complete and utter domination.

Your eyes don't look where you want them to. You don't choose when to breathe, what to say, where to put your feet, nothing. All you can do is curl up in a portion of your mind and cry, because you know you'll never be free again.

Life's a bitch, and then you die.

Ain't that the truth?

A light snap broke me out of my musings. Some woodland animal or other was out there, rustling around. If I had a human mouth, it would be watering. I hadn't eaten for a few days. A mouse or rabbit sounded pretty tasty to me right now.

I looked. Focused my binocular eyes. Nothing. And then…A green glow. A flash of red. A momentary glimpse, filtered through treetops and branches. My curiosity abated as the whatever-it-was changed direction and stepped into the meadow, bathed in moonlight.

THAT was no woodland animal.

First off, it was an alien. But like no alien I'd seen before, and believe me, I've seen quite a few. This guy was massive. Huge. Stood at something like seven feet tall, like a Hork-Bajir. Powerful reverse-jointed legs that looked capable of gigantic bounds and lethal kicks in combat. Dusky-red scales. An almost-human torso, except for a weird sort of bony plate on the upper portion. Thick arms, ending in long three-fingered hands that were toughened like a carpenter's. A positively massive tail, thick and sinewy, probably as long as he was tall, writhed with a triangular blade capping it like a one-sided mushroom. A head that looked almost like an Andalite, except when you noted the weirdly ridged ears, the four nostrils, and mostly a gigantic cranial plate like a skull cap, extending from where a human nose would be, along the back of the head and neck, where it merged with the collarbone. Two eyestalks weaved aimlessly above the top of his head. His slit-pupiled eyes literally glowed, a creepy sort of luminescent green. All in all, something that looked not too far off from what we always thought Satan looked like. A creepy nightmarish thing, out for a midnight stroll.

One thing's for sure, this bad boy was totally not from around here.

I froze on my branch. Hoped he wouldn't notice me. My mind raced. I knew I had to get this thing back to Jake and the others, pronto. What the hell WAS it? The head looked a lot like an Andalite's, but I had no clue what that might mean. Maybe a distant cousin, like the Garatron we had witnessed a few weeks ago? Some new host body for the Yeerks? For all I knew, there were hundreds of the things. Heck, with that tail they could give a Hork-Bajir a run for his money.

The thing, whatever he was, didn't appear to notice me. He sort of glanced from side to side hesitantly, like this was new territory. Keeping his eyestalks constantly on the alert, the guy stalked further forward into the clearing. The legs moved weirdly. Like a blend of a chicken and a velociraptor. A jerking yet weirdly fluid gait that bespoke barely-restrained speed. I noted that down on my list of Things To Watch Out For.

Having reached a suitable boulder, he sort of perched on the edge with his legs splayed out. Cupping his chin in his scaly hand, his broad shoulders heaved with a sigh. The surprisingly-human pose looked a lot like that statue The Thinker, but with a bizarre twist.

I relaxed a hair. Just a hair. Whoever this guy was, he came alone. Looks like he'd been alone for a good while, too. But whoever this guy was, he was an unknown quantity. Could be a Yeerk scout, for all I knew. But if it was a Yeerk, then there would be more of them, and what's more we would have seen it.

Too many questions, not enough answers. I hated when stuff turned out like that.

In the meantime, this stargazer from Planet Bizarro heaved another sigh. Reached down with his tail and fiddled with the grass, poking it and idly slicing a few blades. Squashed an ant with a slightly bulbously-tipped scaly finger. Drummed his long fingers against his cheek. The guy looked bored out of his skull.

In the end, that cinched it for me. Yeerks don't stargaze, sit down and play Tiddly Winks with grass blades or whatever. But if he wasn't Yeerk, what was he? And more importantly, did he believe in magic talking animals?

Only one way to find out. Swooping from my branch that was really too chilly for sleep anyway, I landed on a small bush near him. He tensed up and began to turn his head, then revolved his eyestalks instead and watched me. No real malice or anything, just sort of surprise and curiosity. Like a hiker would watch a bald eagle they just noticed about 10 feet away. Sort of wistful, too.

He watched me for a while, but never said a word. I could feel his gaze raking me up and down, curiously but not calculatingly. Weird guy.

I took a deep breath. It was now or never. Hello, I offered, trying to be nonchalant. He reacted instantly, even as the first syllable escaped my skull. He sort of reared back in surprise, his main eyes widening and his eyestalks stretching out to their limits almost comically. He actually scooted back for a split second, then seemed to remember something and brought his sinuous tail upright, ready to strike if need be.

But again, no malice. Even when confronted with the Amazing Talking Bird, he stayed pretty low-key. He looked at me anew, but with confusion and bewilderment.

What…? he asked almost rhetorically, sounding dazed. Shook himself slightly. What the hell? 

I blinked. Not your typical reaction I'd come to expect from alien types. Hello? I repeated stupidly, like I was on the phone or something.

He blinked all four eyes for a moment, then let out a thought-speak moan and cupped his head in his hands again. Dammit, he mumbled. Knew I'd lose it eventually… 

I was getting kind of creeped, not to mention slightly confused. Did he think I was a hallucination? That he was crazy or something? Oh, well. Might as well make the best of it, anything I said would probably be blown off.

Look, who are you? I asked bluntly. You're not from around here, that's for sure. 

Sure as hell ain't this thing, he retorted with a surprising flare of bitterness. A three-fingered gesture encompassed his body. Friggin' alien or something. 

I was getting totally lost. This was WAY off the mark from what I had assumed. Uhhh…. 

Aah, what's the use? He resettled himself in his Thinker pose. Nobody said hallucinations had to make sense, eh? Freakin'…. He sighed. Whatever. I used to be this guy, you know? Sophomore at the high school down there, video gamer, computer nut, the whole nine yards and all that shit. 

But then, like, he continued morosely, staring into thin air like I didn't exist, there was a thing. A blue thing that let me do stuff and turn into other stuff, you know? 

My heart froze. The blue box!

Then I was in this weird place. Like some sort of, like, alien world, ya know? With ecosystems and all that shit. Crazy natives. Was with some other guys, turned into native dudes, but couldn't turn back. Majorly lame. 

"Majorly lame"? I hadn't heard that phrase for years. I did the only thing I could do, and kept listening.

Convinced I was a figment of his imagination, the guy felt like he was in a mood to talk. Okay, I could do that.

Got back here, sure as hell ain't gonna go to the authorities or whatever. X-files and all. He waved a hand in the air aimlessly. Been holding up Seven-Eleven's and stuff like it's an early Halloween costume, but I can only keep that up for so long, you know? 

He gave a bitter, barking laugh. But what really sucks, is that someday pretty damn soon I'm going to run out of places to hit or animals to catch and just sorta starve. His pseudo-voice took on a slightly deeper, parodying tone, which probably was some exhausted attempt at humor with himself. They find the body, they're all, "the hell's this?" you know? Study it for years and all, damn government shit or whatever… 

His main eyes drooped, and his head began to nod onto his chest as he continued to ramble. After a few more minutes of mostly disjointed meanderings, he dropped off to sleep.

My mind whirled. It was too much to take in. A human? A nothlit, like me? But in one of the most bizarre things imaginable. At least I could hunt for food or accompany my friends whenever they did things near civilization. But this creature before me….

This guy had no one. Nobody.

A loner.

Like me.

I shook myself slightly and lifted into the air, thinking furiously. If he was holed up in my woods, why hadn't I seen him before? How long had he been like this? Why hadn't the Yeerks noticed him yet?

And how the heck was I going to explain this to the rest of the Animorphs?


	5. The Hunt Is On

Jake

BRRRRRRRRING! The bell rang, and I nearly bolted from my seat. Mr. Ayers, the History teacher, tried to shout, "Class, remember your homew—" then gave up. It was no use anyway, even without all the people talking and shouting and shoving at the door.

I wormed my way through the bundle, got my things together, and burst from the school doors. Freedom! Humans weren't meant to sit for hours on end in cramped desks, I'm telling you. We had the whole weekend to do stuff…..but where other kids probably went to play Nintendo or play basketball, I knew in my gut that it was probably going to be yet ANOTHER weekend of stupid, near-fatal missions. ANOTHER Saturday morning spent getting killed instead of watching cartoons. ANOTHER Sunday night stopping parasitic slugs from ruling the world, instead of doing my homework.

I could see it now: "Uh, I couldn't do my homework, Mr. Ayers, it had Taxxon guts all over it." It's kind of hard to write an essay when a Hork-bajir's chopped off your pencil hand.

The others all had afternoon periods, but my schedule got out early, so off I went. Knowing Marco he'd probably skip the last class, but then again, that's Marco for you.

A shadow cut across the sun for a minute. (Hey there, Fearless Leader.) Tobias' voice came silently in my head. I shrugged, glanced up and saw a red-tailed hawk wheeling gracefully over the suburbs. (Come on to the usual place, Big Jake,) he continued. (You're not gonna believe this.)

I poked my head into Cassie's barn. Empty, thankfully. Her dad usually did the meds around this time. I slug my backpack in the corner as Tobias swooped in a window, alighting on a rafter. "So what's up?" I asked.

(There's a new visitor in town,) Tobias said bluntly. (Ran into him last night wandering around the woods.)

I froze. "What?" My mind worked furiously. Another Andalite? So soon after Arbat's failed assassination? What was the Andalite government up to, anyway?

I shook my head. "Get Ax," I ordered. "We'll need him to figure this out."

(On my way.) Tobias swooped out. I plunked down on a hay bale, flipped open a binder, and tried to concentrate on my nuclear chemistry. Cobalt-60 and Iodine-131 undergo beta fission reactions….I groaned. Yeah, this would be REALLY useful stuff to me. Maybe I could bore Visser Three to death.

A little while, Ax sailed into view, hopping over a fallen log and landing almost daintily, trotting into the barn. Ax was an Andalite. A kid too, I guess. A _nothlit_, which is like a cadet or something. Picture a deer. Then slap a boyish, almost-human torso onto the front half of the body. On top of that, stick a mouthless, angular face with two big green eyes and two smaller eyes mounted on tentacle-like stalks. Then cover the whole thing in blue and tan fur. Pretty weird, right? Now, don't get me wrong. Rachel or Cassie or whatever might think he's mostly cute, but when you see that tail, you know this bad boy's packing a punch. About as long as I'm tall, it's this massive thing, topped by a scythe blade that's seriously three feet long. Very fast, very strong, and very good on your side in a fight. I've seen it cut people nearly in half with just one slice, and lop off heads like dandelions.

Generally, Andalites aren't folks you mess around with, mainly because of the tail. But Ax is cool. We've fought more battles together than I can count.

(Prince Jake,) he greeted me, bowing. I resisted the temptation to roll my eyes. He's totally convinced that I'm his Prince, and sometimes he just doesn't shut up about it. I've sort of started viewing it as a running joke, but Ax? Who knew? We were still trying to figure out if he had a sense of humor or not.

Tobias swooped in again. (All right boys and girls,) he began, (here's the scoop. Last night, there was an alien running around our woods back here.)

Ax drew his shoulders back. (Is it…?)

(Sorry, Ax-man. It's not Andalite. Looks a lot like one, but different.) Quickly, Tobias summarized what he had seen, and his subsequent conversation with the guy. I turned away and folded my arms, unwilling to let my anger show.

"Tobias, you went ahead and took a very stupid—and unnecessary, I might add—risk," I said in a low voice. "If he was a Controller—still might be, for all we know—you might as well have marched us all down to the Yeerk pool."

Tobias preened his feathers and didn't reply. Ax aimed his eyestalks at him. (Tobias, I too am disquieted by your initiative,) he announced. (But as you humans say, what is done, is done. We must figure out who he is.)

"Yeah." I started pacing. "Didn't he say he was in high school around here, Tobias?"

(Uh-huh.)

"Ax, check the local high school records. Search for any…Oh, I don't know, any suddenly truant students."

(Someone who dropped out, maybe,) Tobias volunteered. (Or stopped coming to school. Being _nothlit_ kind of affects your attendance record.)

"And other stuff too, come to think of it. Tobias, what was the deal with you in the early days?"

He shifted slightly. (Well, you guys know about my aunt and uncle. They didn't put up a big stink when I disappeared, didn't really care much about me. Nobody really noticed me leave school, either. But this guy sounds different, like he came from a better environment. Look around for missing-person posters, maybe. When a kid disappears all of a sudden, your average nice parent might think of kidnapping. Your average not-so-nice parent, well…) he laughed. (They don't give a damn.)

I nodded. "Missing-person reports, dips in attendance, the works." I glanced at the clock. "Marco and the others get out soon. Grab him and get online."

Ax bowed. (Yes, Prince Jake.)

(Any orders here, O Fearless One?) Tobias asked.

"Keep looking around," I answered. "There's no reason he'd travel very far, if he's smart. He's probably still in the area."

(Right.) Tobias swooped out.

I sighed, and collapsed on a hay bale. The hunt was on…


	6. Contact!

Part 6 – Contact!

Marco

My name is Marco.

And right now, I was in serious trouble. Ms. Gomez walked up and down the class rows, collecting the essays we wrote the night before. Or were supposed to have written. Or might have written or might not have. Or really intended to write but never got around to it. Or wrote only to have the computer crash.

Or, like me, were supposed to have written but spent the night punching out Controllers during a raid on a Yeerk-controlled Burger King. Hey, it's kind of hard to write an essay and save the world at the same time, all right? I could see it now: "Hold on Mr. Hork-bajir, you can finish ripping out my intestines after I finish this paragraph on 19th-century British poets." Yeah, sure.

She stood over my desk. "Marco? Where's your essay?" She gave me a Look over the top of her glasses. I gulped. Here goes. "Um, um, I did write the essay," I gibbered. "I thought that, uh, Thomas Jefferson…" Her eyes narrowed. I plunged on into unknown waters. "…had some really great insights on Robert Frost's allegoral interpretation of Aristotle's metaphorical emancipation…" Whew, what a mouthful. The main problem overcome, I wrapped up my BS. "…and uh, furthermore, his courage and dedication were an example to us all…" What a great nonsense line, no wonder politicians use it so much. "…but, uh, I can't turn in the essay because I submitted it to an English major for literary review," I gabbled. "Only the best for you, Ms. Gomez."

I gave her my patented Sheepish Cute Marco Smile and held my breath. The seconds stretched on while she glared at me like some deranged tiger. I sweated.

A shadow of a smirk appeared at the edge of her mouth. Crap, busted. "Nice try, Marco," she said, going on to the next desk. "But—"

BRRRRRRRRRRINNG! The bell shrieked, and I bolted. I was SO out of there. Slipping into the stream of kids in the hall, her final damning words were lost in the cacophony. I hooked up with Jake at the lockers. I grinned at him, still caught in the rush of my narrow escape. "So, Big Jake, get that essay in for Gomez?"

Jake rolled his eyes, chucking some books in. "Yeah, like you're such a paragon of virtue in the area of turning work in."

"Since when do you use words like 'paragon'?" I mocked. "My explanation was very well-thought out, and in this man's humble opinion would have talked a Taxxon from its lunch."

Jake just grunted. "She didn't buy it." Not a question.

I gave him an innocent look. "Hey, is it really official if class ended before she passed down the sentence anyway?" I pointed out. "Besides, I can just write it later, hand it in, and it would all work out fine."

The guy just eyeballed me. "Marco, since when have you _ever_ done makeup work voluntarily?"

"Ooh." I smirked. "Low blow." Jake punched my arm affectionately, and we fell into step through the throng heading outside.

"So, what's up?" I asked.

Jake looked around and lowered his voice. "We have a situation."

I groaned. "No! Please! Just no! Just ONE DAY after school, I'd like to go home and play some nice relaxing Nintendo. One day! Is it really too much to ask to be stomping Goombas with a deranged plumber instead of playing jump-rope with my intestines? Do we ever get to hit the Pause button? Do we ever get to play some peaceful Myst or Riven?"

Jake ignored my ranting. I kept going. "I mean, what is this? If I'm fated to kill endless waves of bad guys, at least there should be little floating score points over their head when I deck them! Hey, do you think that would work? Make it so we get points per slug squished or alien antagonized! Yeah!"

"Marco?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

"Aww…"

We kept going, now slouching along sidewalks towards Jake's place. "All right, fine," I sulked. "What's the scoop?"

Jake kept his eyes front. "We've got a new guy in the neighborhood. Crashed here two nights ago. Tobias saw it and told us. Turns out he saw the newbie himself, too. Weird guy, not quite anything we've seen before. According to Tobias, he looks like some weird Andalite shoot-off."

Now it was my turn to eyeball Jake. "Remember our buddy the Inspector?"

Jake shook his head. "Nah, Tobias said the guy's not Garatron, either. Something new."

I stared at the sky pensively. "People would notice if he popped his head into the mall," I pointed out. "Where'd he crash? More importantly, where's he at?"

"A, the woods, and B, no clue," Jake answered tersely. "We're looking for him, but the Yeerks probably noticed it too. Tobias says the crash site's crawling with Controllers, no way in hell we can get near it. Here's hoping this guy's got enough sense to stay away. Turns out Tobias talked with him."

I stopped and stared at Jake. "And? Don't leave me hanging, here."

He shrugged. "Turns out the guy's a _nothlit_. Thought he was going crazy, so he talked to the Magic Bird, though the way Tobias tells it he probably _was _a bit nuts at that point. No idea how long he's been stuck."

I frowned. "Huh. Told the others yet?"

Jake shook his head again. "Not yet. Got work and chores tonight, but it's the weekend tomorrow. We'll hook up tomorrow morning and lay it out to Rachel and Cassie."

We reached Jake's house, and he went home. Me, I kept going, the beginning of a plan forming in my mind.

It wasn't until later that night, actually, that I met our mystery alien myself. I had been hanging out at the arcade, reveling in the temporary absence of life-threatening mayhem. Time Crisis was just as hard as always, and I always died at the part with the tank. Stupid tank. Of course, when you have a bright pink plastic zap-blaster, there's not much you can do. The last of my quarters gone and the change machine acting up again, I decided to call it a night.

Walking along the downtown sidewalk at about 1 in the morning, the streets were pretty deserted. I got near the edge, where shops and restaurants were beginning to thin out into suburbia, when I heard some voices coming from an alley. I listened in as I passed, out of sheer boredom.

"Don't move, Andalite," a voice sneered. "The Visser will pay handsomely for your head. Attachment to your body is optional."

THAT caught my attention. I doubled back, flattening against the wall, and snuck a look around the corner. Four faint spots of green light were the first thing I noticed, shining out of the gloomy alleyway. My eyes adjusted away from the neon signs, and I made out a homeless guy with an ugly-looking handgun threatening a tall alien that looked like a cross between an Andalite and a lobster. The alien's eyes, two main and two stalks, shone with an intense green glow, which was what I had first seen when I poked my head in. All of them were focused on the guy with the gun. His tail looked nasty, but he seemed to have forgotten about it, rooted to the spot by the gun. Definitely a human reaction.

I eased back around the corner and considered my options. I couldn't morph out here on the street. The hobo was facing away from the mouth of the alley, but if alien-boy noticed me and looked up, the Controller would notice. Damn. Well, if I did nothing, some scummy Sub-Visser would have the host body of his career. Not a terribly appealing future.

Fortunately, this Controller's hobo host was a drunken old wineo. I might have a chance. Most of it depended on surprise. Not for the first time, I wished I could just go ape on him, but finding somewhere safe to morph might waste time that the _nothlit_ might not have. I took a deep breath. Here went nothing.

Not wasting breath on a war cry that would just get me noticed and shot, I sprinted into the alley, grimly silent. So focused on anticipating movement from the "Andalite's" deadly tail, the first inkling the Controller had of me was when I grabbed his wrist, shoving the gun away and down. He jerked in surprise, tightening instinctively upon the trigger, which set the gun off with a noise not unlike a bomb. You think guns make those cute little _ptew ptew _popping noises like in the Bond movies? Think again. It's this shockingly loud explosion, like dynamite, literally feet away from your head. Ears ringing, I hung doggedly onto his arm, vision swimming.

Then the _nothlit_ got off his ass and joined the party with a powerful kick, revealing freaking massive triple-jointed legs and wicked talons that had been concealed by the gloom. He took a step forward and kicked straight-on like he was punting a football, the two giant front talons punching holes half the size of coke cans in the Controller's leg. The injured leg instantly buckled, and the Controller went down to one knee, still gamely wrestling with me for the gun.

The _nothlit_ stepped back and kicked again, kung-fu style, this time at both of us locked together. The breath left my lungs in a pained _whoosh_ as the Controller and I slammed against the brick wall of the alley. The back of his head cracked against the wall and he went limp.

I threw the gun into a Dumpster and turned around, ducking to dodge another front-on kick that would have taken my head off. "Woah!" I yelled. "Please don't remove my head, I use it sometimes!"

Alien-boy backed off and stared at me. Staring back, I drank in the details of his appearance. Not a guy you wanted to mess with, or encounter in a dark alley for that matter.

Speaking of which…

I stared at him. "Look, I don't have time to explain. If you come into town like this again, you'll get attacked again by more guys like him. Bottom line: get out of here, and stay the hell put until w…_I_ figure out what to do about you."

The _nothlit_ glared back at me with chilling reptilian eyes. (Bull,) he retorted. He shook a scaly finger at me. (Don't jerk me around, man. Guy tries to mug me, you just happen to walk along and Save The Day? And you see this bigass freakin' alien thing and you're cool with it? Psh, yeah right.)

Now I started to get mad. I mean, I can understand the stress of a fight and all, but just who did this guy think he was? …Aside from a 7-foot alien that could kick my head off, that is. "I'm telling you once more," I bit out. "Get out of here. You're in more danger than you know."

Alien-boy just glared. I sighed. "Look, I know you're pissed, but right here, right now, that's all I can tell you, all right?" I thought about telling him about Jake and the others, but decided against it. "Tell you what: there's some woods near here I know…"

I set up a meeting with him for 2 days from now. He left, and I finished walking home, mind racing. This was major. With the meeting in 2 days, I had time to give the rest of the group the lowdown. I just had to hope that Mr. Attitude had the sense to stay away from other Controllers…


	7. Cogitation

Part 7 – Cogitation

Cassie

"…So then he left and I went home," Marco finished.

It was the next morning, in my barn. Jake and Tobias had just filled us all in on the _nothlit_ situation, and Marco just finished his tale of last night's encounter. Ax wasn't there yet.

"Why would he come into the city?" Jake wondered aloud. "Especially downtown, of all places."

"Probably lonely," I answered as I shoved a pill down a lizard's throat. "_Swallow_, you!"

(Maybe he felt some sort of lingering connection,) Tobias volunteered. (Something to remind him he was still human.) I felt sad for him, knowing he probably spoke from personal experience. Tobias has had it pretty rough as a hawk. He was trapped in our first battle, and it felt like we'd been fighting this war forever, though it was probably only a year at most. Rachel hadn't told me anything about the red-tailed feathers I saw occasionally in her room, but from her moods I could guess that she and Tobias had had some pretty serious talks about things like that.

Rachel shot Tobias a vaguely disgruntled look. Publicly, she rarely approved of self-pity. "Or maybe he was just being an idiot," she pointed out. "He _does _sound like one of the assholes at school."

Marco shrugged, idly poking an ant trail with a stick. "He had a major attitude problem," he agreed. "Could be just the rush from the fight, yeah. But you'd think that, going through whatever he'd gone through to acquire that morph in the first place, let alone getting his hands on a blue box, he'd be used to stressful situations at this point."

I nodded slightly. Marco has the ability to see things that most of the rest of us miss. "How would he obtain the morphing power?" I wondered aloud. "The only blue box we know of is…" I trailed off, glancing at the drainpipe where the dismantled parts of the blue box were hidden in the barn.

Rachel tossed her hair. "Remember David? Didn't he put up a blue box on eBay? Did he ever say where he got it?"

"Said he just found it, I think," Jake answered. "But from the reactions of other Andalites when they learned about us, I'd guess blue boxes aren't exactly handed out by the dozen."

(We're getting off track here,) Tobias interrupted. (Look, Marco set up a meeting for tomorrow, right? But didn't you say the Controller was only knocked out?)

Marco nodded thoughtfully. "You're saying the Yeerks know about him, now. The Controller was out cold when I set up the meeting, though, so it _should_ be safe."

"Should be," said Jake wryly, "isn't the same as will be."

Rachel rolled her eyes. "So what's the big deal, then? We go, we pick this guy up, no problem."

"The big deal," Jake sighed, "is what we do after that. Look, I don't think we can make him an Animorph very well. David notwithstanding, I don't think the box works again once you're trapped, right?" He looked to Tobias.

Tobias laughed bitterly. (Trust me, I thought of that a long time ago. No dice.)

"But he knows about the Yeerks now," Rachel pointed out. "This guy sounds nasty in a fight. Personally, I'd rather have him on our side."

"So he can do what, exactly?" Marco countered. "He can't morph, so anything he does is strictly local at best. Add that to the fact that sticks out like a sore thumb, and we're not looking at the most tactically valuable addition to Robin Hood's band of Merry Men here."

"Still," Rachel retorted, "would you rather have him wandering around the woods until the Yeerks find him? Like you rationalized last night, if he becomes a host it'd be nothing but trouble for us."

"Not necessarily," Jake pointed out. "A body like that'd be a real coup for some ambitious Sub-Visser. There could be a power struggle, which would distract Vissers Three and One, and maybe give us a window of opportunity to hurt them more."

"Oh, puh-lease!" I cried. "I can't believe you'd actually consider letting someone get infested just so he could be a Yeerk political pawn."

Jake blinked, and then had the decency to look embarrassed. "Sorry, Cassie."

I stepped slightly into the center of discussion and spread my hands. "Look, you guys can argue about this all you want, but the fact remains that right now, there's some scared, lonely kid in a weird new body wandering around the woods in our backyard. You can keep debating about what to do _after_ we make sure he's safely away from the Yeerks. He can stay with Ax we decide the rest. Okay?"

I put my hands on my hips and glared at everyone. Marco grinned, and then saluted. "Heil, mein Fuhrer!"

(Yes ma'am!) Tobias laughed.

Jake gave me one of his slow, heart-melting sheepish grins. "Okay, then."

Further discussion halted as Tobias cocked his head suddenly. (Ax's here.)

I listened, too. A moment later, I heard the _clump-clump_ of Ax's hooves as he leaped over a fallen log, trotting into the barn with a metal slab, formerly Marco's iBook, now bristling with wires and add-ons, tucked under one blue-furred arm. (Hello, Prince Jake,) he greeted us. (Hello, all.)

"Hello," we chorused. Marco pointed at the computer. "Uh, you'll be able to put it back together, right? Dad doesn't like his stuff messed with."

(I assure you, restoring this relatively primitive device to its former condition will be accomplished with comparative ease,) Ax answered.

Marco clutched his head. "Too many syllables!" he cried. "Brain…melting…" He fell back into a bale of hay, twitching comically. We laughed. Ax just looked nonplussed.

Jake stepped in. "So Ax, did you find anything?"

(Yes, Prince Jake.) He stepped over to the wall and plugged the laptop into Dad's router he uses to check online medications every so often. A few seconds of fourteen-fingered typing later, Ax had called up a local missing persons database.

(As you will see,) he showed us, (there is a young male human of pale complexion who disappeared from his instructional dwelling two of your years ago.)

"It's called a school, Ax." Marco said dryly. "And you've been on Earth forever! Work with the lowly natives already! They're everyone's years! A year is a year!"

Ax just eyed him through his stalks. (….disappeared two of your years ago,) he repeated. Marco just stuck his tongue out.

(I correlated that data with the instructional database,) Ax continued, (and was able to determine his precise identity, as well as the approximate date and time of his disappearance.)

We looked it over. The kid in question was named Scott. He had been a senior in high school, way older than the rest of us, just like Tobias reported. He was darkly-dressed in his picture, with a long face and pale skin. Nothing particularly remarkable about him. Grades were above average in English and history, below average in math and science. No real special achievements. Pretty ho-hum overall.

Tobias fluttered over to a rafter that had an angle on the screen. (Must've been a loner,) he remarked. (I know I was. Takes one to spot one.) Tobias had been a bit of a dreamy dweeb back in his school days, I remembered. He was a favorite target of bullies, and became instant friends with Jake after he pulled his head out of a toilet.

Jake studied the face. "Think I remember him in one of my math classes," he said after a moment. We looked at him. "There was a year when I was doing really well in math and was moved into a class a grade or two above," he explained a bit sheepishly, "and this guy was there. I remember him because he was so much older than the rest of the other high-schoolers. I think he must have been held back a year or something. Never saw him in any other class of mine, though."

Rachel shook her head. "So now what?" she asked.

"Now?" Jake shrugged. "Now we meet him, I guess."

Marco looked vaguely confused. "What, all of us? Look, the guy never saw me morph," he pointed out. "He thought he was hallucinating when he met Tobias, and he hasn't met any of the rest of you. Far as he knows, we don't really exist. You really want to change that and reveal everyone all at once?"

Jake cocked an eyebrow. "Got a better idea?"

Marco rolled his eyes, but shut up.

"…Okay, then." Jake took charge. "We'll hook up here tomorrow afternoon, then go say hello."

Everyone split off and went home. A goose honked at me, and I went to go get the animals more food.


	8. Many Meetings

Part 8 – Many Meetings

Scott

After the encounter with the hobo, I stayed out of town for awhile. I'd been hoping to pass it off as early Halloween or something, but looks like that wasn't about to happen. What was it that guy said? "You're in more danger than you know?" Feh. I'd left that stuff behind on Planet Bizarro. Why would it follow me all the way back here? Talk about bringing your work home with you.

Meanwhile, I'd spent another cold night in the woods again at the base of a pine tree where I'd agreed to meet that kid. Now I had sap all over my back. Great. I sat for awhile and stared at the sunrise, contemplating my situation. Was this really how I was going to live…for the rest of my life? Nobody human would even recognize me. Was this truly my fate? To live on the bare edges of society, neither human nor inhuman, like some crazy type of tramp until I was discovered?

I slowed down and thought about that last bit, gazing at my red-scaled, three-fingered hands. What would the average human think upon seeing me? Fear? The hobo _had_ pulled a gun on me, God knows where from. Was I truly that frightening? I curved my eyestalks over, staring at my now truly alien face. Glowing eyes, almost elfin ears, long angular bone structure…a blank stretch of scales where my nose and mouth should be rendered me about as emotive as rock. Not exactly the face of a terrifying monster, but a far cry from a Care Bear or Teletubby. Its very lack of expression was un-nerving, like some mask that I had a sudden urge to rip off, tearing the whole façade away. The knowledge that I couldn't brought me nothing but anguish.

However, I caught myself. Moping and weeping (a corner of my mind wondered if my new body could shed tears in the first place) would do me no good. Just like dealing with tough times in school or whatever, the key was to live day-to-day and stop thinking about the long term.

I sighed, looking around. As I did so, a rustling caught my ear. I aimed an eyestalk upwards at a red-tailed hawk that alighted on a branch, ruffling its feathers. I watched it for a while. It glared back at me with laserlike bird eyes, but didn't do anything.

Whatever, it wasn't like I was going to begrudge it a perch. There was another rustling in the bushes, and the kid from the other night stepped out into the clearing. I gave him a little wave and sighed, still feeling a bit low from my thoughts earlier. He stuck his hands in his pockets and slouched against a tree a couple yards away.

Neither of us spoke for a few seconds. Then he sighed. "What were you thinking, just walking into town like that?"

I shrugged. (I'm not really sure,) I admitted. (Sorta wanted to get food. Company or something. I--) I sighed. (Look, how the hell am I supposed to cope like this?) A thought struck me, and I swung my eyestalks to the guy. (For that matter, why're _you_ just as casual-as-can-be about this whole thing? I'm a freakin' bug-eyed Martian, man! I mean, what gives?)

The kid looked at me for a second, chewing his lip as he tried to decide something or other. Then he shrugged a bit. "Oh, we've been around, seen some stuff," he said casually. "Turns out this place is crawling with little green men."

I stared at him. Pardon?>

He grinned, and jerked his head over my shoulder in a sort of "check it out" motion. My head snapped around as some bushes rustled, and a real, live Andalite stepped out. He was actually kind of young, not much taller than the other kids, but an honest-to-goodness Andalite nonetheless.

The kid's dry chuckle refocused my eyestalks on him. "My buddy Ax," he introduced the Andalite with a wave of his hand. "I'm Marco, and the featherball on the branches over there is Tobias."

I looked over to the red-tailed hawk I'd noticed earlier. He glared. (Don't make me come over there, Marco.) Marco just stuck his tongue out.

I groaned and put my face into my hands, more of a coping mechanism or force of habit than anything else. After a moment, I stared at Ax with my eyestalks. (If you've got this guy hanging out with you,) I said slowly, (that means y'all know about the Yeerk thing, right?)

Marco gave a smattering of sarcastic applause. "Ding ding ding! Johnny, tell him what he's won!" He deepened his voice. "A chance to Save The World! Move over, Captain America!"

I chuckled in spite of myself. (Where's your spandex?)

Marco rolled his eyes. "I keep telling Cassie we need to morph something else a little more modern, but noooo…"

I poked my head up and stared at Marco curiously. (Cassie?)

Marco just whistled, and three more kids stepped out of the forest, a serious guy, a blond bombshell and a shorter black girl. They all did a subtle double-take on seeing me Marco grinned. "Right on cue. Am I good or what?"

The bombshell rolled her eyes. "Only in your imagination, wonder-boy."

(Jake, Rachel, and Cassie,) Tobias supplied their names. (That about wraps it up.)

I made a noncommittal noise as I looked around the group with all eyes, studying them. 4 grade-school kids, an Andalite and a pet bird. None of them even blinked when I'd mentioned the Yeerk thing, and they were totally casual and at ease around alien wierdos like Ax and I. Combine that with what Marco said, and you come up with a band of kids against an intergalactic empire.

I eyed Marco. (You weren't kidding about Johnny, were you.) Not a question.

Marco stared back. "Dead serious, man. Here's the plan—"

(We hold the world ransom…) I began in a Dr. Evil accent. He just gave me a fish-eyed look. (…never mind.)

He shook his head. "Here's the thing. The way things are now, you're screwed if you stay out here on your own. You obviously know the lowdown on the Yeerks, so we don't need to cover that again. You know what you need to do, and you can probably guess that we fight them, too."

I gave him a dubious look. (Fight with what?)

"The morphing power," the serious guy, Jake, answered. "We've got a bunch of different animal morphs we use in our little war. Insects for spying, big predators for combat, stuff like that. We've hurt them a bit. We've harassed them. But we need to do more. And we need every fighter we can get."

My mind spun. (Slow down here a sec,) I protested. (You can turn back again once you morph?)

The black girl, Cassie, tilted her head at me. "You didn't know?"

(Not a clue,) I answered absentmindedly, already thinking about my old self. I tried to concentrate on that image, envision it, trying to will myself to change back. Nothing happened.

Tobias caught on first to what I was doing. (No dice,) he told me. (Once you're trapped, you can't turn back.)

(Trapped?) I echoed.

The young Andalite nodded his head, speaking for the first time. (The Escafil Device,) he explained, (due to the limitations of theoretical quantum particle physics, is only able to maintain its morphic field for a marginal duration.)

I narrowed my main eyes. Thank God that I was an English major, I could actually understand what he was talking about. (How marginal are we talking here?)

"Two hours," Marco answered. "You found out the hard way what happens if you stay longer than two hours in a morph."

I sighed. (Got that right.)

Jake stepped in. "So that's the deal. Now, I should ask you if you really want to join or not, but at this point, you've heard too much not to join. You'll be staying with Ax and Tobias."

Marco jerked his thumb at the Andalite. "Just don't let him get near the remote control, he'll watch commercials all day."

(Uh-uh,) Tobias interrupted. (It's _These Messages_.)

I laughed. What a bunch of freaks. Still, it wasn't as if I had much of a choice, or an alternative for that matter. Jake glanced at the darkening sky. "Getting late," he observed. "Dinner's soon. Get some rest, everyone."

And that seemed to be pretty much that. The kids filed off by themselves, Tobias fluttered onto Ax's shoulder, and we three freaks set off into the woods alone. Talk about burning your bridges.


End file.
